A Matter of Timing
by Shade
Summary: Yet another Older Negi Fic. Or is it?


**A Matter of Timing  
by Shade**

Disclaimer: KA writes MSN. D product of C. FUAIE!

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Little Negi Springfield knew that he wasn't supposed to be out at night.  
While the village and the surrounding hills in this remote region of Wales  
had been peaceful for many years, it was still no place for a seven year  
old child to be wandering around all by himself with only the light of  
the full moon and the stars in the clear sky overhead to see by.

But Negi was on a mission.

His childhood friend Anya had told him about the legend of the water spirit  
that lived in the lake near here who she said she had heard from a villager  
who had known someone who knew someone who knew someone that had seen her  
before. On the night of a full moon such as tonight, the spirit would appear  
to swim in the waters of the lake and the person who managed to find and take  
her garments hidden somewhere on the shore would be able to trade them back  
for a boon from the magical being.

To the young boy this meant only one thing. A chance to find his long lost father.

And so he had forced himself out of his warm bed and still clad in his long pajamas, started  
on the simple trodden path to the lake. The walk seemed to last forever in the darkness,  
but in reality was probably only about an hour and a half. But when dark shadows turned  
the familiar reassuring trees into looming monsters ready to leap out, the little boy  
could be forgiven for not being able to tell the difference.

When he finally saw the lake ahead the sight of it seemed to take his breath away.  
It seemed to have turned into pure liquid silver in the moonlight, so beautiful  
and magical that the sight alone seemed to be enough to justify his sneaking out.

But as he got closer, he saw that there was someone in the water. From the distance  
it was hard to make out but it seemed to be a woman. Negi started to run, panting  
as he pumped his short legs as hard as they would go to get to the edge of the lake.

His breath came out in pale little puffs of mist in the cold night air as he finally  
reached the dense undergrowth that seperated the thin forest from the thick grass  
that lined the banks of the inland lake. He had once almost drowned in those waters,  
determined to get his father to show up and save him at the last minute and only  
receiving a long stay in bed and a tearful scolding from Nekane for his troubles.

He shivered slightly at the memory before looking for the person he had seen earlier.

And then he heard a soft splash of movement in the rippling water and turned to see her.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as Negi Springfield stared at the most beautiful woman  
he had ever seen in his life. Long thick tresses the color of the the finest emeralds  
swept down the milky smoothness of her flawless naked back as the little beads of water  
clinging to her form shone like little diamonds. Her face was the essence of Woman,  
and even the innocent child could feel the draw of her innate feminine power as he stared at her.

For the first time in his life, Negi forgot about his father. He forgot about Anya, Nekane,  
Old Stan and the cold gnawing at his shivering hands and feet. He forgot about everything  
except that captivating vision before him. It was only when she dived under the water that  
the spell was broken and Negi came back to himself.

Blood rushed to his cheeks as awareness returned. He was supposed to be a gentleman, Nekane  
had made sure to drill that into his head and here he had gone and just gaped at that woman  
when she wasn't wearing any clothes...clothes...clothes!!

The boy started looking around on the ground for any sign of the Water Spirit's clothes,  
because what else could she be but the legendary magical creature? But no matter how hard  
he looked, Negi couldn't find any sign of garments on the grass. Determined to look even harder,  
he failed to watch where his feet were going and stepped on a dry twig that cracked under  
his weight like a gunshot.

"Who's there?"

The woman was standing up where the water only came up to her finely toned hips. Trickles  
of shining silver ran down her glorious form as she looked right at where Negi was. Had he  
been somewhat older, the sight of her exposed breasts would have instigated an embarrassing  
physical reaction from him provided he didn't simply have a heart attack from the raw sensuality  
that radiated from her like light from the Sun.

Hesitantly, he stepped out of the underbrush in his blue pajamas, eyes wide with fear  
at having been caught peeping. Negi wasn't sure what the punishment was, but Anya had  
always said really bad things happened to boys who peeped on girls.

She studied him thoughtfully, an amused smile forming on her perfect strawberry lips.

"A child? Come here, boy. Let me look at you."

His feet seeming to develop a will of their own, Negi found himself moving closer  
to this enchanting creature. When she suddenly narrowed her eyes, he thought it  
was his fault and he found himself holding his breath in fear. But she wasn't  
looking at him any longer, she was looking above-

Something massive erupted from the trees.

The terrified young boy started to shout a warning to the Water Spirit, but she was already moving.

He gaped as the strange woman leaped straight out of the water as if it wasn't even there,  
revealing herself completely to his gaze for a long priceless moment. And then a swarm of  
bats appeared and swarmed over her body before glowing and changing into a tight fitting bodysuit  
that seemed to reveal even more of her then simple nudity had only moments earlier.

Large Batwings erupted from her back and a smaller pair on the top of her head as the green haired figure  
met the monstrous creature in midair and began to attack it. The larger wings on her back shifted into  
spears of shadowy black that struck at the beast from all sides and forced it to bat them away with  
the huge twisted clawed hands that belonged to no natural creature.

Mesmorized by the violent spectacle taking place above, Negi almost missed the sound of the second figure  
moving to get a better angle on the pair dueling in the sky. It might have passed for a man were it not  
for the being's animalistic features and the scales that served it as skin. It paid the boy no attention,  
focused entirely on the battle taking place.

And then the little wizard saw it was aiming the staff in its hands at the woman fighting its fellow monster.

Negi Springfield didn't even stop to think, the little practice wand Nekane had given to him  
and he always carried around was simply in his hand and pointed at the creature standing before him.

_**"Practe Bigi Nar! Ardescat!!"**_

It was only a very tiny flame, but it was able to distract the assassin's attention just enough.  
The ugly green shot from its staff only grazed a single wing instead of the heart it had been  
initially aimed for and the element of surprise was now gone.

**"Stupid Human Brat!"**

Something heavy and sharp hit Springfield in his middle and he went down hard on his back.

Then the awful gutwrenching pain began. It hurt worse then anything Negi could have imagined,  
tears were running down his face as he moaned and tried to keep from screaming because moving  
even a little made the pain that much worse.

He didn't see the enormous fireball of magical energy that shimmered like a diamond trapped in  
the heart of flame that completely vaporized the creature that had struck him down, nor did he  
witness the sudden and complete dismemberment of the large hulking attacker by the woman's  
transformed bladed wings. All the dying boy saw was the stars in the sky, twinkling eternally  
beyond the concerns of mortal men.

And then there was a face looking down into his own. The face of an angel.

It was her, the Water Spirit. One tiny trembling hand reached up and touched the softness of her cheek.

_"Good. You're okay." _

Negi tasted iron saltiness in his mouth as he said those words, his voice barely more then a whisper now.  
Everything was getting blurry and becoming harder to see now. But at least she wasn't hurt and that  
was all that really mattered to him now.

Her hypnotic gaze never left his face, it almost seemed as if she was struggling to come to a decision.

_"I wanted to see you...father..."_

It didn't hurt so much anymore. It felt almost peaceful now. The Spirit's face was getting larger,  
was this what dying was like? Was she going to be the last thing he saw? That didn't seem so bad-

And then she kissed him.

Her mouth was sweet on his and he felt something hot and pulsing flowing into his body, there were no  
words that he knew of which could truly capture the essence of it. It was as if he was both expanding  
into a giant and squeezing together like light through a magnifying glass.

He could hear her voice in his head even though their lips remained joined.

_**'A piece of myself to you, for House Aensland always repays their debts.'**_

Then Negi Springfield knew nothing more.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Negi! Wake up you idiot!!"

It was Anya, his childhood friend, yelling in his ear. The little girl looked  
furiously at him. He stared back at her blankly, trying to remember who he was  
and what he was doing there.

"How long do you think you're just going to sleeping in your bed like that?"

He looked down to see what she was talking about and stared.

This was his bedroom and this was his bed. There were no marks on him, had he dreamed it all?

But if he had, then where had his pajama top gone?

Then Anya started yelling at him again and seven year old was soon too busy trying to avoid  
the embarrassing spectacle of being forced to take a bath to recall the fading memory of  
what seemed to be more and more of a dream.

But sometimes at night, that woman's face would still appear in his mind's eye as he slept.

** -x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-  
Chapter 0: I've got Sexy Back  
-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-**

In hindsight, the goodbye hug and kiss from Nekane should have warned him of what was to come.

Yes, they had embraced before, but not like this. Negi could feel parts of her he was pretty sure  
he wasn't even supposed to know the words for yet. Then there was the kiss. She'd always kissed him  
on the cheek or a few times on the forehead. This time it was lip to lip and for some reason there  
was a tongue in his mouth that didn't belong to the young wizard.

He didn't remember much after that since Anya had done something violent and explosive  
and he'd woken up later on the plane with a large bruise on his head.

It had been a pretty uneventful flight, though for some reason the stewardesses insisted on  
slipping folded pieces of paper into the pockets of his robes when they thought he wasn't looking.

Upon arriving in Japan Negi had wasted little time in using the great Japanese train system to make his way to his new job.

Unfortunately, this meant he was now currently trapped in an enclosed space with what seemed  
to be nothing but high school girls. All of whom were covertly studying him with an unnerving glint  
in their eyes.

_'Oh Bugger.'_

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Eiko Eiken, leader of the undefeated Mahora dodgeball team known as the Black Lilies, had not been  
able to believe it at first. This was a females only car, a response to the recent upswing in train molesters.  
Men were not supposed to be allowed inside. But bold as brass, this one had just strided on in  
as if he belonged here. She'd had half a mind to grab him and report him to the authorities until  
he'd turned slightly and she saw his features for the very first time.

Eiko had promptly forgotten what she was doing and even who she was for a few moments  
as she simply stared, dumbstruck. Then she came back to herself and started to frantically  
check her hair and makeup because it was obvious she couldn't risk looking anything less  
then her very best at the moment.

He was gorgeous. The highschooler had never really believed that the word could be applied to a person  
of the male gender in real life until now. That face could have stepped off of the cover of a teen idol  
magazine or a shoujo manga. Just starting to imagine what that young man would look like in girl's clothes  
threatened to send blood spurting out of Eiko's reddening nose. Her hands itched to run themselves through  
that reddish brown hair to discover if it was really as soft and tempting as it looked.

An audible gulp alerted the girl to the fact that her companions Vivi and Shii had noticed where she  
was looking and found him just as mesmorizing as Eiko did. With the finely meshed coordination of countless hours  
of team practice the three girls began to move without having to say a word to each other.

They weren't the only ones.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

There were some who would have described the situation as comparable to a lost deer being unknowingly  
stalked by a pride of lions. But that assumption was incorrect since the lions in this case had obviously  
been wiped out by a pack of hungry Deinonychus who had just spotted the fresh catch of the day.

"Why hello there!"

Negi turned to see that three rather pretty teenage girls had come up to him. The leader had  
long dark hair and held her nose high in the air as she addressed him in a voice that drizzled  
velvet and honey.

The young man gulped.

Her equally attractive companions, a long haired blonde with hungry eyes and a chestnut haired girl  
with long straight bangs in the front but the rear trimmed short to taper off at the base of her neck,  
had quietly slid in on either side to box him in among the three of them.

"Um..."

"I haven't seen you around before, are you new to the campus?"

There were suddenly hands boldly roaming where they had no business roaming. It was almost absurd  
how these girls could continue to talk in a calm fashion even as their bodies took shockingly forward  
liberties with him.

"I'm Eiko!"

"Vivi! Pleased to meet you!"

"Call me Shii. Let's get to know one another better."

This last one was punctuated by a brazen grab of his right arm that slipped his hand under the skirt  
of the girl's school uniform. Negi desperately fought to avoid contact with anything and failed miserably.

"Girls! Please!!"

They had him backed up against the glass window of the train now. The dress shirt that he had decided  
to wear in order to make a good first impression with the school administration had two buttons undone  
at the top and the battle to defend the rest of it was going poorly.

But a brief respite from the onslaught came a most unexpected place.

"Unfair!!"

For a moment Negi actually thought he was going to be saved. Of course that illusion only lasted  
as long as it took for one of the girls in the crowd currently surrounding them to speak up again.

"Don't just hog him all to yourselves! Share the wealth!!"

Negi whimpered softly as the human tide of young nubile flesh moved in.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Gesundheit, Asuna!"

Twin bells jingled as reddish orange pigtails suddenly changed direction.

"That wasn't me, Konoka," said the blue and green eyed girl in a puzzled tone.

"Are you sure," Her long dark haired companion asked her teasingly. That noise had  
been rather loud and she simply couldn't resist the temptation.

"Quite-Oooo! Takahata-sensei!!"

"Honestly, that girl..."

Konoka Konoe shook her head ruefully as she watched her best friend Asuna Kagurazaka run  
off in pursuit of their rough faced former homeroom teacher further down the mad scramble  
of student bodies trying to avoid being late on the first day of the new term. That girl  
simply had horrible taste in men old enough to be her father.

The schoolgirl looked around again, hoping to see one of her other friends around in the morning rush.  
Perhaps Nodoka or Yue from the Library Exploration Club or maybe Setsuna would finally talk to her  
again this year. She really missed being able to spend time with her childhood friend that wasn't full  
of awkward silences and hurried retreating from her company with some excuse or another.

And if her grandfather had another one of those marriage meetings scheduled-

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

She was the sheathed sword who guarded her mistress from within the shadows.

The only purpose of her existance was to shield her lady from the dangers  
around her and destroy them without ever letting her know of their presence.

She was Setsuna Sakurazaki of the Shinmei-Ryu.

As always, the slim silent girl had her dark hair tied up high in a single  
raven's wing ponytail. Her sheathed nodachi hung over one shoulder along with her  
book bag as she watched over the one she had sworn to protect, unseen and unnoticed.

Which was as it should be. She did not deserve to be in close proximity to Konoka-oujosama.

The sounds of a disturbance near the train lines registered but were dismissed as unimportant.

As long as it did not threaten her lady, Setsuna didn't care what kind of idiocy  
the other students were up to. The swordswoman's duty lay on her shoulders heavier  
then any mountain and there was no room for silliness or goofing off.

She would not fail in her duty again.

Wait, where was her mistress going? School was in the other direction. She was going to be  
late if she didn't hurry! What was her lady thinking?! Could it be some kind of attack?

Setsuna turned to look in the direction Konoka was heading in, searching for what could have possibly captured her-

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

He'd tried reasoning.

It hadn't worked.

He'd tried to put up a firm but polite resistance to the hands and other assorted parts that had  
made their way on and around his struggling form.

That hadn't worked either.

But then his sneeze had provided a welcome distraction as the girls instinctively tried to cover  
themselves up as skirts and undergarments soared every which way in the train car like technocolor snow.

He'd lost his tie completely at this point, ripped off of him like some prize trophy in battle.  
There was lipstick here and there and actual bitemarks on his neck. His jacket clung to one shoulder  
while the white dress shirt underneath was completely undone and flapped open as the breeze rushed past him.

The boy was of half a mind to simply turn in his resignation and go home already, not even graduation was worth this-

_**"NAGI!!"**_

The sound of his father's name made Negi's head stop and turn. Unfortunately for him,  
the rest of his body wasn't quite as good at coming to an instant halt while in the middle  
of a magically accelerated sprint.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Geh."

The start of another school term. The same stupid people and stupid classes passing her by again.  
Over and over she had to repeat this school hell because of **'that man'**. If only he wasn't dead.  
She wanted to kill him herself. Slowly and painfully, for all the humiliation and embarassment he'd caused her.

Evangeline A.K. McDowell stalked towards the main school building, driven by the curse that bound her  
to go to her class. Oh, if she put her mind to it she could resist the compulsion, but the longer she  
stayed away the stronger it became. She'd given up fighting it on the starts of semesters, it just  
wasn't worth the headache the act of rebellion inflicted on her. Much simpler to show up to see what  
stupid fool was there to teach for the year and then cut classes as long as possible until the blasted  
term ended. And every four years the cycle would repeat itself and she'd be right back where she was now,  
grouped with another bunch of airheads and boobs.

"Master."

The short blonde school girl didn't look up nor did she slow her pace. Behind and to the side her servant  
Chachamaru Karakuri walked with her, the green haired gynoid presenting a fair approximation of a school girl if  
one ignored the height, the mechanical joints and the artificial earpieces which were in fact her auditory receivers.

"There seems to be a disturbance taking place at the train stop."

Evangeline snorted and said without turning, "It's just those blockheads who slept in trying to make it  
before the bell. It happens every year, Chachamaru. You know that."

"But Master, this anomaly doesn't appear to be within the parameters of the morning rush to school, even for the first day."

"Who cares? They're all idiots anyway."

"Yes, Mast**--**"

As the unexpected silence from her companion stretched on, Eva finally turned to look.

Her jaw dropped slightly.

Chachamaru stood frozen in position with her eyes blank and her mouth still open in mid-sentence.  
The gynoid's main internal heat pump was rotating so fast that it was actually audible to Eva,  
thumping like a mad jungle drum. A thin trickle of smoke was emitting from the earpieces even as she watched.

"Chachamaru!?"

The blonde school girl slapped her hand down hard on the green haired robot in the approximate location  
where the right breast would be on a human. The reset button gave a soft click and the noises from within  
Chachamaru's body slowed and finally ceased.

_"Rebooting. Systems Coming Online. 15 - 25 - 60 - 97 - Online."_

A light switched on behind the gynoid's eyes as awareness returned.

"-er."

The robotic girl paused as her CPU told her that something was slightly off. Her internal timeclock  
was wrong by a small but measurable amount from the atomic standard. Her internal diagnostics were also  
reporting that while all physical systems were within parameters there were twelve gigabytes currently  
in read only mode in data storage.

"Master, there appears to be an unusual influx of unquantifiable data lodged  
in my secondary memory drive. Was there an error in my system?"

McDowell didn't hear her. While the gynoid had been rebooting, Evangeline had been looking for whatever  
it was that had caused her servant to crash. And she'd found him.

It was him. That bastard. That insufferably handsome, sexy bastard!

_**"NAGI!!"**_

Evangeline managed to take two charging steps before she was knocked aside by  
some starry eyed girl speeding past her on rollerblades. Before she could manage  
to recover and go kill that idiot another girl slammed past her at a dead run,  
accidently smacking the tottering smaller girl in the head with her school bag  
and sheathed blade before either Eva or Chachamaru could react.

As she hit the ground, head spinning, Evangeline muttered in a weak voice, "You'll pay for that, Setsuna Sakurazaki."

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

"Hurry! We don't want to be late!"

Ako Izumi hurried along with her friends across the campus towards their classroom building.  
Makie Sasaki, Akira Okochi and Yuna Akashi completed the 'Sports Girls Quartet', a nickname the group  
had picked up in their first year at Mahora. Each of them was with a different physical activities club,  
though in Makie's case that was Rhythmic Gymnastics. Yuna was part of the Basketball Club and Akira  
one of the Swimming Club's rising stars. Ako herself was manager of the Boy's Soccer Club,  
where her skills as a Nursing Trainee came in handy provided that blood wasn't visibly involved.

Izumi was just a normal average girl who'd been rejected after confessing to a boy she'd liked over the summer.

The pale haired girl's head drooped under a sudden black cloud of depression.

"Come on Ako, it's a brand new school year!"

A hard clap to the back from the short haired Yuna made Ako wince and almost stumble.

"Yeah, it is."

She appreciated their efforts to raise her spirits, she really did.

"So cheer up, we'll have plenty of time to mope around when Mid-terms arrive!"

Despite herself, an unwilling chuckle escaped from Ako's lip. The expression of slightly exaggerated misery  
on Yuna's face was priceless. The basketball girl's dread of tests second only to that of the Baka Rangers  
was a running joke among Class 2-A.

Izumi decided that Akashi was right. She should look on the bright side of things. There was still plenty of time to-

"Ako! Look out!!"

Akira's warning cry came too late.

With a shriek of surprise, the soccer manager felt someone collide into her and started to fall.

But just as the girl expected to hit the hard pavement with her elbows there was a twisting sensation  
and she found herself instead landing on a solid warmth instead of cold cement. It looked like a white  
dress shirt that had seen better days. She blinked as she realized that the buttons had been undone  
and that there was rather a lot of naked skin exposd. Very nice looking skin it was too and-

"I'm terribly sorry for running into you like that!"

Ako looked up. Somewhere behind her she could hear Akira's sudden intake of breath, Yuna's gasp  
and Makie's little squeal. But at the moment, none of that mattered to her.

"Are you all right?"

Yes, she was better then all right.

This looked like it was going to be a great school year after all.

**-End Chapter 0**

-

**Omake**

He'd tried reasoning.

It hadn't worked.

He'd tried to put up a firm but polite resistance to the hands and other assorted parts that had  
made their way on and around his struggling form.

That hadn't worked either.

But then his sneeze had provided a welcome distraction as the girls instinctively tried to cover  
themselves up as skirts and undergarments soared every which way in the train car like technocolor snow.

So at this point, Negi Springfield had finally decided to throw his dignity to the wind and was simply running for it.

Or at least he tried right up until the moment that a glassy eyed Mei Sakura latched onto his ankle with a grip like steel.  
In the seconds it took to free himself from her grasp, the others got a chance to recover and realize that far from  
a hinderance their new lack of garments made things so much simpler.

The train car rocked once as the doors closed shut.

There was a loud cry for help that was cut off in mid scream.

Suddenly there was silence.

And then the rhythmic rocking began.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-

Forty three girls missed First Period that day.

Unfortunately, as Negi Springfield would learn in a few months, that wasn't the only one they missed.


End file.
